The present invention broadly relates to an improved method as well as an improved apparatus for collating folded printed products, especially signatures or sheets.
Generally speaking, the method of the present invention is for collating folded printed signatures or sheets in which the folded printed signatures or sheets are conveyed along a substantially straight, moving conveyor path and are thereby deposited over one another in a straddling manner.
In other words, the method of the present invention is for collating folded printed products especially signatures or sheets, and comprises the steps of conveying the folded printed signatures or sheets in a forward conveying movement and in straddlingly overlapping relationship along a plurality of substantially straight conveyor paths and positioned radially around the conveyor paths.
In its apparative aspects, the present invention concerns an apparatus for collating folded printed products, especially signatures or sheets, in which the folded printed signatures or sheets are conveyed by means of a collating conveyor along a substantially straight, moving conveyor path and are thereby deposited over one another in a straddling manner.
In other words, the apparatus of the present invention is for collating folded printed products, especially signatures or sheets, and comprises a plurality of collating conveyors for conveying the folded printed signatures or sheets along a substantially straight conveyor path in mutual straddling relationship.
Known apparatuses for collating printed signatures, as described, for example, in the Swiss Patent No. 412,795, have a plurality of deposit stations arranged along a collating conveyor. The folded printed signatures are removed from a stack, opened and deposited in a straddling manner on the collating conveyor or on the respective folded printed signatures which is already present on the collating conveyor at this location. Since the folded printed signatures each must be individually removed from a stack, it is not possible to arbitrarily increase the operational speed of such apparatuses. Furthermore, the folded printed signatures which as a rule leave the rotary printing press in an imbricated formation must first be formed into a stack which then must be brought to the deposit stations. This requires, however a significant expenditure of time, infrastructure, equipment and/or manpower.
These disadvantages are substantially eliminated by an apparatus known from the European Patent Publication No. 0,095,603, published Dec. 7, 1983, and corresponding to the U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,930, granted Dec. 25 1984. In this known apparatus, the folded printed products are fed continuously, i.e. directly in the arriving formation to the collating conveyor. By this means the folded printed products no longer, as previously was the case, have to be stacked up into a stack. This apparatus, however, has the disadvantage of a relatively large structured length since the feeders have the same feeding direction as the collating conveyors at least in the transfer region of the folded printed signatures or sheets. Moreover, it is not possible to increase the operational speed in the amount desired.